Mabel's Guardian
by TheSnazzyScribe
Summary: Winston had always managed to stay detached from his charges in the dreamscapes. Until he met Mabel Pines, that is. But will her friendship be worth opening old wounds in the town he thought he had left behind? Follows Season One and a little ways before. No slash! NOTICE: VERY WIP
1. The Night Before

_Hello, my dear readers! This will be my first fanfiction, so please keep your criticism constructive. I'll try to update this regularly, but what can I say? Lives can get busy. Gravity Falls belongs to Alex Hirsch and his Illuminati overlords (?), and only Winston belongs to me. _

_ Enjoy_

_-SS_

Winston paced along the ethereal plane, wringing his gloved hands behind his back in anxiety. The sparkling stars in the distance burned brightly around him, but it didn't matter much to him. The plane had been his home long enough to be indifferent to its effects.

"Hey, M!"

He whirled around to face his new charge, the very one he'd been waiting to see. She smiled to reveal a mouthful of gleaming braces, and his heart leapt.

"Hello, miss Mabel." Winston tipped the brim of his top hat to her in greeting, hovering an inch from the ground.

"Hey, M!" she repeated. "What are you doing here?"

"You tell me." He was always summoned to her dreamscape when she was facing turmoil where he was needed. Of course, Mabel could get along perfectly well without him, that he knew. Was it so bad that he liked to visit?

"Well..." Mabel fingered the sleeve of her purple nightgown. Winston smiled at the floppy disk design emblazoned across the front. They hadn't even had those things in his day, much less the iPods and CDs he had heard so much about.

"Yes?" he prompted. Winston conjured a park bench from the void, then patted the spot beside him for her to sit there. Mabel hopped up onto the seat, staring up at the night sky before them. Her brown eyes held the same wonder as the first time he had come.

"Me and Dipper are leaving tomorrow."

"How exciting! Where to?"

"This little town up in Oregon called Gravity Falls."

"Oh?" Winston had frozen, his voice more tremble than word. He shakily recovered. "W-well, you'll have have your brother, won't you? You should do fine." Oh, fate, this was gonna be a tough one.

"I know," said Mabel. "And it's only for the summer."

Three months of that town? "Then you'll do great. New towns mean new friends, right? If you don't mind my asking... who will you be staying with?" Please don't say it. Please don't say it-

"Some old guy called Stan Pines. He's our uncle- great uncle," corrected Mabel. "Grunkle? I don't know."

"Sounds like an interesting guy." Winston ran a nervous hand through his golden curls, his top hat flying up to accommodate the movement. Mabel tilted her head quizzically at his behavior.

"You alright, M?" she asked, a note of concern in her voice. Winston instantly snapped his walls back into place. It was his purpose to comfort her, not worry her further.

"Yes. Perfectly so." He clapped his gloved hands together in anticipation, shooting up from his spot on the bench and into the air like a rocket. "Now, let's have some fun, shall we?"

Mabel grinned at him, and Winston melted again. He had never had an attraction to her in a romantic way, but there was a pleasant satisfaction in making her happy. It wasn't the same with the rest of his charges. Mabel was special.

He extended his hand for her to join him in the air, which she took. Winston could feel her jump as gravity lost its grip on her. He let her drift through the air on her own, hovering at a distance so as not to be kicked by one of her mid-air somersaults. Mabel laughed delightedly at her fun.

Hours or minutes could have passed before she started to flicker. Winston had a terrible sense of time having lived on the plane, or dreamscape, for so long. Mabel gave him an apologetic look before being sucked back to reality. To her, all of this was a dream.

As soon as she was gone, Winston drifted back down to the park bench and stretched out along it. He held his hands in an upside-down triangle, tapping his thumbs together anxiously. He had a few minutes at most before the next round.

Mabel was going to do fine. She was charming, she was people-smart, and her optimism would do her well.

She would be just fine.

At least that's what Winston tried to tell himself.

Just... why did it have to be Gravity Falls? Why Stan?

"Hello?"

Winston shot up several feet in the air in surprise, his never-ending train of thought shattered and cyan sparks flying from his sleeves. As if a switch had been flipped, his persona pasted itself on. He glanced down to his latest charge, a red-haired boy with a pair of thin-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. The little boy stared at him in amazement, and the persona began with the opening line.

"Hello, my boy. I am the Magician."

The persona of the Magician would take Winston over until the end of the session, spreading his wisdom through the dreamscapes. He had taught many lessons in this manner, allowing himself to revel in the joy he brought forth but remain detached.

Mabel Pines was the only child he'd ever let himself visit regularly. Birthdays, Christmas, when she was feeling down. The other children only got a visit from the Dream Magician once in their lives, but not Mabel. Her going to Gravity Falls couldn't be a coincidence, though, nor her last name.

Pines. Stanford Pines. Dipper Pines. Mabel Pines. They were like a forest of some kind, one that was going to be burned one day.

But until then, Winston would keep performing and doling out wisdom, waiting until he was free from the dreamscape. He would be the Magician for whoever needed him, a guardian of dreams without rest or relief.

Yippee for him.


	2. First Visit

_ For those that found the previous chapter a bit confusing- i.e. "Who the heck is this Winston guy?"- a lot of questions should be answered here, and perhaps a few raised for the right reasons. Read and review, please, and do enjoy! -SS_

Mabel Pines could recall with surprising clarity the first time she'd dreamt of her wonderful Magician.

The moment her head had touched the pillow that night, she knew for certain that something was off. Her fall into sleep was instantaneous instead of the usual routine of tossing and turning. The black of the inside of her eyelids lightened to the deep blue of the night sky, and she felt like she was floating in mid-air, but that couldn't be. Her feet, padded by the warm socks she wore, definitely stood on something.

Stars dotted the air beside her, close enough to touch. She tapped one and it dissipated like mist, spraying her with cool sparkles. Mabel continued to tap them, laughing as she went, and was soon covered from head to toe in glitter.

"Hello, miss?"

A blurred figure had approached her. Mabel stared at it until it became a man dressed all in white. No, not a man, more like a boy. A top hat rested on his pale blond curls, and he was decked in a suit complete with a bow tie and coat tails that waved behind him as he walked. He swirled a curved cane in his gloved hand.

"I am the Magician," he said, tipping the brim of his white hat in salutation. His voice echoed across the sky, monotonous and soothing.

Mabel only beamed at him.

"My name is Mabel," she introduced. Mabel thrust out her hand to him, and he took it in a dainty fashion

"Lovely name, miss Mabel," remarked the Magician. "I'd expect nothing less from a bright young lady like you."

Mabel shifted her feet, returning her hand to her side. The Magician's irises glowed golden like dual pools of light. It was both beautiful and unsettling at once.

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"Do I frighten you, miss Mabel?" He cocked his head and frowned, resting his hands on the cane in front of him.

She started to nod, then shook her head vigorously. There was no reason to fear him, not the way he seemed to glow with kindness. At the same time, though, the Magician in white had a sadness to him. Mabel smiled. She would have to fix that.

"That's good. Hate to have scared you." The grin he returned appeared forced, something that held little true emotion but was necessary to his performance.

"So, what was your name again?" It couldn't really be 'the Magician', could it? Mabel had never heard such a name used except on a stage.

"The Magician."

"Sounds like a mouthful."

"You can call me M, if you like."

"But don't you have a name like Bob or John or Bill?"

The Magician visibly flinched at the last name, one of his golden eyes twitching. The name Bill seemed to bother him a great deal.

"Just the Magician or M, if you please," he said, his voice cracking a little. M cleared his throat to regain composure, his suit ruffling strangely the way a bird might shake out its feathers. "It's a title, like the Doctor or the Professor."

"Alright." Mabel would weedle the name out of him before their time together ended. "Why are you here?"

However, the interest in his name began to fade as he explained who he was and what he did. M was a dream guardian, she learned, a Magician who visited children while they slept. He did this when they seemed to need him or when they were facing trouble. The night sky was not a sky at all, but a dreamscape where he could perform this duty.

"Would you like to tell me why I'm here, miss Mabel?" he asked.

Mabel hesitantly told him of her recent problems in school. Girls had begun to give her guff about her sweaters, stickers, all of the things that were even mildly fun, and told her that they were childish. They had said that she should try and be like them, be serious and grown up despite the fact that her and them were only eight years old. Her brother Dipper had been little help, and the same had been true of her parents since she hadn't dared tell them.

The Magician only nodded at the appropriate cues and smiled sadly like he had heard this story a million times over. He answered it with one of his own.

"Miss Mabel, did you ever hear the tale of the shooting star?"

Mabel racked her brain for a fairy tale by that name, but none fit the description. "Nope."

The Magician began his tale, the words weaving into reality above them.

"Well, once in a sky like this one, a star fell. She was big and bright and beautiful, and she had fallen because she wanted to touch the Earth." To emphasize this, a shimmering star shot down to a spot on the plane Mabel had decided to refer to as the ground.

"Now, when the star fell, she had to pass through the clouds, who were dull and gray. You see, the clouds were very jealous of the star and her shining beauty and confidence. They knew that they could never be like her, so sought to drag her down to their level. They whispered sweet nothings to her in the fog, telling her she should become like them and be a cloud instead of what she was meant to be.

"This was, of course, a lie, and the little star kept moving. The clouds didn't like this one bit and tried to wear her down to rock so that she would break when she hit the Earth, but the star stayed resilient. She was a shining star, after all. Why should the opinions of the clouds matter to her? When she finally hit her spot on the ground to spread her beautiful shine, she was stronger and more powerful than she had ever been in the sky."

"I don't think that's how stars work," Mabel piped up.

"Oh?"

"And the clouds, too."

"Well, smartypants, if you don't want me to finish…" M folded his arms across his chest in mock irritation, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

"No, no. Keep going." Mabel liked listening to M's sultry voice and his funny story. It was comforting, even though she found the tale a bit confusing.

"So, as I was saying, the shooting star was stronger because of the clouds, even though they had been mean to her. The clouds failed to wear her down, so she fulfilled her dream."

"That's a pretty story," reasoned Mabel, "but… what did that have to do with anything?"

"You tell me." M relaxed, leaning on his cane. He wanted her to put the pieces together herself.

Mabel thought hard, the gears turning in her head. Finally, after a moment of concentration, it clicked. "The clouds are the girls at my school, right?"

M nodded in confirmation. "Go on."

"And I'm the shooting star?" Mabel doubted that. Despite the amount of glitter currently clinging to her nightgown, the description just didn't work. She quickly patted the purple fabric down to remove the sparkles

"Yes! Precisely!"declared M, acting as though she had passed a test.

"But how does that solve my problem?"

"Those girls feel threatened by how special you are. Just keep shining and you'll reach the place you want to be, but let them win and they'll keep you trapped in the sky. See what I mean, shooting star?"

"Ohhhh."

The Magician rolled his eyes as if to say "Well, finally." He glanced up at the stars and seemed to see something Mabel didn't, kind of like he was looking at a clock.

"I'll have to be leaving now," he observed.

"Why?"

"Because I have other charges to handle now."

"Oh. Can I come?"

"What?" M was caught off guard by the question, his confident facade crumbling, wringing his hands with a nervous energy. "No, miss, you can't." Sadness laced his words, but when he started off into the plane, she tugged on his sleeve to stop him.

"Wait!" she protested. "Will I ever see you again?"

"Perhaps." He sounded doubtful and optimistic at the same time, not looking her in the eye and instead into the distance of the plane.

"Then what do I do now?"

"Shine, shooting star, and wake up." He tipped his hat to her, then blurred away. Mabel cried out when the sky surrounding her vanished.

She sat up in a jolt in her bed, a hand clutched to her chest. Her chocolate brown hair stuck out at all angles on her head, and sunlight streamed into the room through the window between her bed and her brother's.

Dipper stood over her bed, still in his pajama shirt and shorts. "Finally, Mabel!" he said, sounding exasperated. "I've been trying to wake you up! We're gonna be late!"

He hopped down from her bed, and Mabel tossed the poofy pink comforter off of her. Her room was its same old, poster-pasted self, but things felt different.

There was a sense of pride she had when she donned her colorful sweater and headband after Dipper had gone. She kept a skip in her step the entire day, and not one of the mean girls had been jerks to her that day.

Actually, over that next week, the same girls who had been so nasty to her had complimented her sweaters. They weren't so bad, she learned, once they didn't feel threatened. The clouds hadn't dragged her down, but instead made her stronger and more confident. Mabel wished she could thank the Magician for his weird metaphor.

This wish was granted some months later with the coming of Christmas, but that was a tale for another time.

_ This chapter was brought to you by CHIPACKERZ. Hope it answered some questions and posed more!_


	3. Updates From the Falls

_ Just busted this out while listening to Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog! Enjoy! :3 -SS_

"So what was this boy's name?"

"Gideon Gleeful."

"You're not serious?"

"Totally serious!"

"Oh, dear."

"Do you know what I should do?"

"No clue, miss Mabel. This is out of my depth. He seems very persistent." It was, to a degree, rather disturbing, the level of devotion this Gideon boy had for Winston's shooting star. He'd expected some serious adoration, but… this was creepy. And the boy himself seemed kind of freaky.

"You've dated girls, right?" Mabel asked, tilting her head quizzically. The pair were lying on their stomachs in the dreamscape, finally catching up after her first week in Gravity Falls.

"How do you mean?" Winston tugged on the collar of his shirt, finding it unusually tight. These kind of questions were always awkward for him, rare as they were.

"Like, you've been on dates, haven't you?"

"Well…" Winston twiddled his thumbs a bit. Courtship had changed since he'd been in the dating game. "Not recently. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

"Ugh!" she exclaimed. Mabel rolled over and sat up, throwing her arms in the air in exasperation. "I'll ask Wendy tomorrow or something!"

"Remind me: Wendy is the girl who works in the Gift Shop?"

"Yeah."

Winston could vaguely remember a visit he'd had with a tall redheaded girl of the same name. Wendy Something-with-a-Roy-in-it? He may have had an abnormally good memory, but some things didn't stay in his mind forever.

"Is the boy really psychic?" he asked, hoping to stray from the topic of romance. It was a subject he had had little experience in, so it was one he didn't particularly enjoy addressing.

"Dipper doesn't think so," Mabel admitted, twirling a tendril of brown hair round her index finger. "He says Gideon's a fraud."

Based on Mabel's description of the child, Winston couldn't help agreeing with her brother.

"All I'll say is that this boy might not be the best suitor for you."

"I don't want to hurt his feelings, though."

"Survive the Ballroom Dance, then you can tell him your true feelings without any guilt. He'll understand if he has any reason."

"Thanks, M."

"No problem, my little shooting star."

Winston took a deep breath, waffling on the question he had wanted to save for the end of her visit. After mulling it over, he decided to ask now instead. Better to get it out of the way, right?

"Mabel," he said uneasily. "How fluent would you say you are in the Latin language?"

"Um, what?" Mabel gave him a funny look, and Winston regretted his quire. She wouldn't understand.

"Never mind." The incantation would be too complicated for her, anyway. And, based on what he'd seen, summoning dream creatures was a jarring experience he didn't wish on anyone, much less Mabel. "See you next time, miss Mabel."

"Bye!"

She faded off to the waking world, and Winston rolled onto his back to stare up into the void.

He wished he had the courage to ask for Mabel's help, or any charge's for that matter. Mabel was the obvious choice, but he supposed any would do. To properly pull a dream creature, demon or guardian, from the dreamscape would take an outside summons. That, and of course an agreement between he and the human to summon him would need to be sealed.

Yes, as the Magician, Winston had helped many. But he wanted freedom. He was like a djinn trapped in a lamp, able to assist others but never himself. One dream creature he knew had tricked humans into summoning him for his services many times over, but Winston didn't have the taste for that.

His deceptions toward his charges were of convenience, not malice. The persona of the Magician was a tool for him so that he wouldn't confuse young children and make him seem more fantastical. After all, what child would warm to a boy named Winston? He hadn't even told Mabel his full name, fearing she'd find it too odd. He supposed this fear was a bit unfounded, but it had never truly mattered.

He had realized with this visit just how much more worrying he was going to do in the coming days. In the past week alone, the Pines twins had been attacked by gnomes, an automaton sea monster, and cursed wax figures. And there was surely more to come if he knew his Gravity Falls. The good thing was that Mabel hadn't faced these challenges on her own, and this gave Winston a newfound respect for her twin brother, Dipper.

Well, not newfound. Winston had always respected Dipper. This had mainly been because he had never met the boy. Even through his plight over his constellation-shaped birthmark, Dipper had never required a visit from the Dream Magician. Perhaps this meant he would never need his wisdom. Or maybe it was that something worse than petty mockery was yet to come.

"Calm down," he muttered to himself. Winston needed to get into character before his next charge arrived, and thoughts like that would get him nowhere.

Channeling his persona took mere moments. He wasn't Winston, the dream guardian who despised his job. He was the Magician, a sly and wise boy in white.

Cyan blue sparks sizzled over his gloved fingertips, hissing with energy.

"Showtime," he said beneath his breath.

_ What'll happen next? Aliens? Plant people? Probably not, but thanks for reading! _


	4. Of Kittens and Presidents

_ Three reviews already? Dang! Guess I'll actually have to check my email for once. If you're enjoying Winston and the story, please go spread this around Tumblr and that sort of thing! It pleases me when people give me feedback, negative and positive._

_ It also pleases the alien plant-people and dream demons. Very much._

_ On that happy note, I present Chap. 4! -SS_

Another week had passed with only minor incidents, including breaking up with Gideon (thank goodness), getting essentially high on foreign candy and possessed by ghosts, helping Grunkle Stan of all people get a date, and had actually finding some new friends in Gravity Falls.

"Can I bring Candy and Grenda to the dreamscape with me tomorrow night?" Mabel had asked the night before one of the girls' sleepovers. This one would be at Grenda's so they could watch some of Grenda's mom's movies without the boys at the Shack being annoyed.

The Magician was shooting cyan beams from his index finger, blasting the stars for sport. He gave her a stern look for the question, and Mabel regretted asking.

"Miss Mabel, the dreamscape is not a playground," he scolded. Another star burst apart and spattered the sky with white glitter. For every one that exploded, two more manifested to take its place.

"Sorry," she apologized halfheartedly. "Just wondering."

"So, what did you do today?"

"I became an official US Congresswoman!" proclaimed Mabel proudly. She wished she had worn her new top hat to show him.

M stopped in his shooting to turn and look at her in confusion. "Um, what?"

"I got to meet the eighth-and-a-half president of the United States! His name's Quentin-" M cut her off.

"Trembley, I know. Founded Gravity Falls, too, didn't he?" He scratched his chin in thought, then looked startled like he'd said too much.

"How do you know about him?" If Mabel had learned correctly, Quentin Trembley had been erased from American history. Only people like Sheriff Blubs and the weird man who had made the video she had seen were allowed to know he existed. The Pines twins would have been locked up in a secret government place for knowing if Trembley hadn't still been legally president!

"I just do," M said, sounding defensive. With this, he fired another beam at a star. It shattered impressively on impact.

"M, how old are you?"

The question caught him by surprise, throwing his aim off. His finger beam shot harmlessly into the stratosphere, never to hit its intended target. "What?"

"You seem old, like, Grunkle Stan old sometimes." Added with the knowledge of America's silliest president, M had to be ancient.

"Comes from living in the dreamscape, I suppose," he answered with a shrug, not looking her in the eye. "It stops the aging process."

"That doesn't answer the question." Mabel put her hands on her hips. M's constant dodging of her questions could be a little irritating, to say the least.

"I'm physically sixteen years old."

"But?" There had to be more to it.

"But," he said reluctantly, "I'm far older than Stanford or anyone else by now. Several decades old, in fact."

"Huh. That explains it."

"Explains what?"

Mabel didn't really know how to put it. The Magician didn't behave like any boy she'd ever encountered. It was the way he talked, maybe, or how he acted like some kind of old-timey gentleman from the turn of the century. Little stuff.

Well, that and how he hadn't seemed to age since Mabel met him. Four years, and M had stayed exactly the same.

She relayed this to him. M ran a hand through his blonde curls, the top hat whizzing around him until he was finished. He cringed a little.

"Oh." A brief pause.

"Care to shoot some stars with me?" he asked, smiling sadly. The Magician wiggled his sparking index finger, then threw his arm behind his back to nail a star with a blue beam. Glitter scattered through the air.

Mabel cocked her head. She knew this to be a distraction, but… finger beams? How cool was that? She trotted over to him and held out her hand. M tapped her index finger, and a hot pink spark appeared at the tip. Mabel examined it closely.

"Can you make my finger shoot kittens?" she inquired.

"Why?"

"Just cause," she said with a shrug. It just sounded like a cool power to have. He rolled his eyes, smirking the whole time, and tapped the finger again.

Mabel experimentally fired a meowing beam at the nearest star. Instead of bursting apart, the tiny cat face lodged itself into the sparkling mass. It gnawed on it comically, making Mabel's smile broaden.

"Awesome! Shpow, pow!" Mabel fired more kittens at random. The Magician rolled in the air with laughter until one landed on the sleeve of his suit. It chewed on him, meowing loudly, and he shook out his arm frantically.

"Damn! These things bite hard!"

The kitten flew off into the distance. Mabel giggled at him, then noticed his brief profanity.

"Watch the language, mister!" she chided. She waved her kitten-shooting finger at him threateningly.

M held up his hands in surrender. "Sorry! Sorry!"

She gave him the stink eye, but it failed to intimidate him. M just grinned at her, probably pleased to be off the subject of his age. Mabel knew there were some things people didn't like to talk about, but he seemed to have a ridiculous amount.

Over the remnant of Winston's time with her, Mabel continued to tell him about her adventure with Dipper to uncover the conspiracy behind the founding of Gravity Falls. Winston already knew how Trembley had been impeached- kind of- and replaced by another president, but it was fun to hear her quest to learn the truth. However, one aspect left him a little flustered.

"So, Pacifica actually told you that you were silly?" It might of been true to a degree, but using the characteristic as an insult really fried him. Besides, he thought he had dealt with the Northwest Heiress long ago. Evidently, this was not the case.

"Yeah, but she's just a cloud, you know? It was sorta silly to try and be serious for her."

"Still…" Pacifica could expect a visit from the Dream Magician very soon.

_ Apologies for the little bit of swearing, but I felt like something else would feel forced, you know? :/ Bye for now. _


	5. Second Thoughts

Winston adjusted his bow tie, checking his reflection in the looking glass he had conjured for himself. He didn't usually bother with such things, but this was exceptional. The Magician was pulling out all the stops tonight.

His reflection had always startled him. It seemed backwards in a way, not at all how he imagined himself. Everything about him was thin and angular, but there was a grace to it all that kind of made it work. Then there were the golden eyes. How did children trust him with those things? He felt like he was staring into his own soul with them. They were certainly a stark contrast to the ice blue ones he used to have.

Was this what his charges had always seen? What Mabel saw? It was a wonder anyone had ever trusted him with this appearance.

Although he had never told her so, Mabel was the only charge he had ever visited more than once. Targeting a point in the dreamscape took a lot of effort, but it had been worth it the first time. Hopefully, this trip would be just as effective.

Winston sighed heavily, watching the rise and fall of his chest in the mirror. What was he doing?

He had no idea. Winston wasn't usually prone to impulsive decisions like this one, but he felt like he had to this time. Not for Mabel, but for Pacifica herself. There was something infuriating about leaving a job unfinished. Repulsive.

Pacifica seemed to lash out for attention. This wasn't uncommon, but she had the increasing pressure of her name's expectations. Shame all of it was founded on a lie.

He had never met Quentin Trembley, but he'd been told enough to know the sort-of president was ingenious, although a little whacked. Who woulda thought peanut brittle had life-sustaining properties? Added with his bizarre antics in office, it was no wonder the government had tried to hide Trembley. He knew too much.

The same was true of Fiddleford Hector McGucket, who Winston had been personally acquainted with. That man had lost a finger for knowing too much, as well as the majority of his mind. Based on what Mabel had told Winston, he still had his moments and could function as a master mechanic, but his sanity had certainly left the building.

The Royal Order could do that to you. It was one of the few reasons, beside the sense of obligation he had, that Winston stayed in the dreamscape. Being summoned out by them in particular wouldn't be good for anyone, so he let them forget he existed. They had their other dream demon, after all. No reason to make a target of himself, and the Blind Eyes couldn't have him wrapped around their finger.

He smacked a fist against the looking glass, then made it vanish from his sight. Winston didn't want to be reminded anymore.

His thoughts strayed toward the first time he had met Pacifica Northwest. She had been a routine case, one a lot like Mabel's, really. Her parents had been pushing her for to conform to their standard of seriousness, Pacifica didn't want to. In those instances, helping a child was sort of out of Winston's hands. What a parent said went, no matter what he did.

The best he could do was act as a shoulder to cry on and hope it would help. Since he didn't check in on charges after his work was considered "done," Winston couldn't be sure if it worked. Apparently, in the case of Pacifica, it hadn't.

Was a trip really worth the trouble? Probably not. There was little chance of helping her at this point in the game. Time would have to be the one to sort her out this time, not a Dream Magician.

It had been easy to get worked up over her treatment of his shooting star, though. Pacifica had made Mabel doubt the very thing he liked most about her: her optimism. It wasn't silliness, it was confidence, and it had the power to bring light into any situation. The fact that someone had taken her greatest strength and used it as an insult royally infuriated Winston.

He allowed the next charge to come through, a little girl of around seven. She stared up at him in wonder, clutching a dingy pink bear in her hands. Winston internally smacked himself, then swapped to his persona.

The golden eyes didn't seem to bother her at all.

_ So, this was more me dropping some hints and digging myself out of a hole I didn't want to go down than actual story. Just trying get to the bigger stuff, you understand. Next chapter is hopefully going to move this story along._

_ Onwards Aoshima! -SS_


	6. Totem Pole

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Mabel, talk to me."

Thump. Thump. Thump.

"Please," Winston pleaded.

Thump. Thump. Thump- "ahh!"

"Mabel Pines, snap out of this!" He had grabbed his favorite charge by the shoulders and shaken her, pulling her from the totem pole she had been banging her forehead against. How the totem pole itself had crossed into the dreamscape was a mystery, but it didn't matter right now.

Mabel gave him a hollow look and shoved his hands aside to return to the activity. Even in dream, she was filthy and covered in vines, dressed in the same grubby clothes she'd worn the past few nights Winston had seen her. He'd been coming for almost a month to try and help her, but she refused to even speak to him. Any attempt to faze her was met with despairing failure.

The dream guardian put his head in his hands, his top hat nearly falling off. What could he do? Winston suspected that she had gone mad, and that this would all result in someone sending his beloved shooting star to a mental hospital.

"M?" she asked hoarsely.

He perked up instantly at her response, the first he received since this all began. "Yes?"

"What happens when someone's heart is broken?"

"I-I'm not sure, miss Mabel. Is that what happened to you?" Fury quickly consumed his relief. Whoever had done this would pay dearly for their actions! This was his optimistic star, not some plaything they could discard when they saw fit! None of his charges were!

His hands before him had turned an angry, mottled red, and he suddenly calmed. It wouldn't do to lose control now.

"Mm-hmm." Mabel nodded as her forehead hit the pole next.

"Who did this?"

Her answer came out garbled, Winston only able to catch strands of disconnected words. "Waddles. Twin. Time-tape."

"Erm... what?"

"Pig. Time-machine. Dipper."

"Dipper did this?" His voice conveyed his anger, deepening his tone to demonic. His pale skin went furious red of its own accord again.

"Yeah."

Calm. Calm and comfort, that's what this called for, not anger and fury. "Mabel," he started gently. "We'll figure this out." Winston put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it away.

"No, M."

Not gonna torch her brother. Not gonna give him horrific nightmare visions to scar him for life. Be cool. Be mature. Just move on and check on her when she's ready to talk.

"I need to get going." Winston rubbed the back of his head, nervous. "Please... just get this sorted out with your brother." The end of the sentence hung in the air, a threat that he didn't want to escape from him.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Somewhere in the midst of it was a nod. Probably.

Reluctantly, Winston left her to her dejection. Dipper was a lucky boy, indeed. Had Winston a miniscule smidge less self-control, the boy would have a nightmare in the Magician's pocket with his name on it.

_ And now, a word from our sponsors:_

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_ This message was brought to you by Night Vale Community Radio, without whom I would be able to get decent sleep instead of listening to it late into the night. No Winston for me, I guess. And, yes, I just shamelessly promoted the WTNV podcast. Back to the story._

He'd still been wavering on that fine line between the Magician and Winston when the interference had hit. What was the term one child had used to describe such an event? "A disturbance in the Force?" Something like that, Winston-Magician was sure.

There was a ripple he could feel in the pit of his being across the dreamscape, and the Winston part of him kicked in, sending sparks to his fingertips in case he needed to defend himself. Things seemed to move in reverse for a moment, then he heard a loud outburst from behind him.

"M! M! Check it out!"

He whipped his head around to face his favorite charge, his forehead knocking against a star and shattering it. "What's the- what?"

Through the glitter in his hair and eyes, Winston stared at Mabel, who was decked in her purple nightgown yet again since she was back to sleeping properly. Not only had she appeared to have recovered from the previous evening's insanity, but she had cradled in her arms something the dream guardian hadn't seen for a long time. Suddenly, her mad babbling made a little more sense.

"A pig?" he asked, incredulous. He shook the various bits of sparkles from his face and blinked to confirm what he was seeing.

"Yup! This is Waddles!" Mabel held the pink animal up for him to see, grinning with pleasure. Waddles squealed happily in her grip, then hopped down and trotted around their feet. It. Was. Adorable.

Winston bent down and pet the pig nervously. "What was that a moment ago?" he asked.

"The timelines settling, I think," she answered, tugging at her hair.

Winston cocked his head in confusion. "I'm sorry, I don't follow."

"We got a time machine this weekend and messed up time! Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey!" With this last part, her eyes spaced off for a second and she shook her purple sleeves spastically.

"And your brother is forgiven?" Winston asked this through clenched teeth. Although that evening's charges had softened his anger toward the boy, Dipper's eventual visit from the Dream Magician wasn't going to be a particularly fun one.

"Well, Dipper did have to let Robbie ask out Wendy, plus fix the messed-up timeline."

"Um… alright." As if that had answered anything. Winston could scratch his head about all of this later.

Mabel tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, looking sheepish. "Sorry about the past few days."

"Mabel, you'd been like that for a month! I was..." Winston trailed off, not able to finish.

"It's time-travel!" she justified.

"Alright. So... the last month never happened?"

"Nope."

"Well..." Winston wasn't sure how to feel about that. Did that mean he would have to revisit the same charges from the month that never happened or something? He just hoped he would never have to repeat any of that totem-pole madness ever again.

"Yeah."

"Just- don't scare me that way, alright?" he said, rubbing his temples in circular motions.

Mabel nodded. "Sorry."

"This job'll be the end of me, I swear," he muttered to himself, but loud enough for Mabel to hear.

"Hey, I think it's great. I wish I could do it." She took on a dreamy look, as if already imagining being dressed in white and performing the duties of the Magician.

"No, you don't." His hand instantly went to his mouth, then fell. It was the truth, and there was nothing wrong in it. She might as well learn his feelings about his profession.

"Then why do you do it?"

"I don't know. It's just... something to do, I guess. I feel obligated."

"If you don't like it, you should quit," she suggested.

"But who would care for the children?"

"M, seriously," Mabel said, giving him a serious look. "You're really good at your job, but you aren't forced to do it, right?"

"Not exactly, no." There was no rule saying he had to be the Magician, not a real one.

"Then quit. The kids'll be okay. They'll get the help from someone else. Sure, it'll take a little longer, but they'll have moms and dads and siblings and jazz that can help."

"Miss Mabel, I don't think you understand."

"Understand what?"

Winston couldn't reply. His thoughts were too big a mess for even him to interpret.

Could he actually do it? Just sever his connection to his charges and do what he liked? The Magician was too much a part of him. He couldn't just turn it off.

Memories of his first charges swirled around him, of when he had created the Magician to help them and spread guidance. They had looked at him like some kind of wizard who held all the answers. It had been a pleasant feeling at first, but it started to repulse him over time. Who was he to spread guidance? Who was he, period?

He didn't know anymore.

Every time he had considered leaving in the past had been hypothetical at best. If Mabel were willing, she could easily be his ticket to reality. If he could properly sever the connections linking him to his charges. If he had the courage to go through with it.

There were a lot of ifs, weren't there?

"Nothing, shooting star. You've just… given me something to think about."


	7. Deliberation With a Psychic

_ Sorry for the delay! I had to do some minor research (which translates to "watch all of Season 1 again and fangirl"), plus have some social interaction. Purely business._

_ I now present Chapter 7 -SS_

As soon as Mabel had departed, Winston resumed his habit of pacing. His curved cane swung like a pendulum in front of him, swaying when he turned on his heel to walk the opposite direction. He had only seconds to deliberate before his next charge came through, a short boy in pale blue pajamas.

"Who are y'all?" the child demanded, his accent an exaggerated Southern drawl. His white hair rested in an orb on his head, and Winston found himself slightly fixated upon it. Was it a helmet of some sort? Perhaps used for protection?

He shook his head to regain focus, switching from Winston to his persona.

"I am the Magician," he answered in the usual cryptic manner. The Magician tipped his hat to the boy, finding him vaguely familiar.

The child studied the boy in white closely as though scanning him. The Magician was now a specimen under the searching gaze of a microscope, which caused Winston to resurface and fidget nervously. He cleared his throat, then extended a hand to the younger child, glad he was wearing his thin gloves. Quite frankly, this kid was starting to creep him out.

"And who might you be?" asked the Magician.

"My name is Gideon," he announced. Gideon took the hand gingerly, shook it with a firm grasp, then released it. He folded his hands behind his back, and the Magician fought the urge to wipe his own hand on his thigh to remove all traces of the contact.

"Gideon Gleeful?" The Magician nearly broke character again as he forced the name out carefully, pausing between the two words. This certainly explained why this boy made his skin crawl.

"How do you know my name?"

"Don't all know the name of the esteemed psychic of Gravity Falls?" lied Winston- Magician, trying to force his discomfort to the back of his mind. Bringing the fact that he knew Mabel into this only begged for trouble considering Gideon's obsession with her. Also, buttering the child up couldn't do too much harm.

Gideon, as intelligent as he was, couldn't help being flattered. "Yep, that's me. Lil Gideon!" He twirled around theatrically, his blue silk pajamas swaying loosely around him, and threw his arms apart as though on a stage. Winston, who was becoming increasingly prominent in himself as this visit wore on, spotted a symbol sewn into the back of Gideon's nightshirt, a multi-colored star with an eye in the center.

"So I've heard," he stated, uneasy. "Well, Gideon, would you like to tell me what I'm doing here?"

Gideon tapped his fingertips together in thought, the doughy hands folding to form an upside-down triangle. "Whaddya mean?"

"I provide solace and advice." _Come on, Win. He's just another charge._

"Advice, ya say?"

"Indeed." He didn't like where this was going at all.

"Any idea how to get a girl to fall for ya?"

The Winston part of him stifled his disgust that might of otherwise manifested as a bizarre shudder, but forged onward. With luck, he could turn this in Mabel's favor. "I suppose this depends upon the situation. Tell me, does this girl hold affection for you in return?"

"'Course she does!" Gideon said, crossing his arms over his chest. "If only her family weren't in the way!"

Again, Winston swallowed back a shudder. It was a shame that offering specific suggestions would give away how much he truly knew; telling off this boy could save Mabel a great deal of future trouble. "Perhaps you should allow her time to consider these affections. Her loved ones will come round eventually."

"Not the Pines family," growled Gideon, his beady eyes narrowing. His chubby fingers flew to a spot beneath his neck like he was grabbing for a weapon, and Winston quickly envisioned the turquoise bolo-tie amulet Mabel had described in the empty space. Thankfully, the amulet was destroyed the night his shooting star had broken up with Gideon.

The fraud psychic started at not feeling the warm power of the lost amulet against his fingertips and frowned. The frown deepened to a scowl. "I'll have my revenge," he vowed angrily. "Just you watch! The Pines family have invoked my fury!" Flames danced in his eyes, setting Winston off like a bomb drenched in gasoline.

He could feel sparks springing to his fingertips, turning from cyan blue to blood red. No one threatened his shooting star, especially not some creep of a boy the likes of the one before him.

"Gideon Gleeful, I believe our session has come to an end," he stated, fully pulled from his persona. The Magician didn't exist for the time being. "Leave this girl and her family be from now and onward."

Confusion was evident on the face of the fraud psychic. For the first time in years, Winston tapped into the deep reserves of his magic and forced Gideon off the dreamscape plane with a snap of his fingers. With his full ability, sending the child away was simple as blowing out a flickering candle flame.

Bolts of crimson lightning shot from his hands in angry bursts. They hit the sparkling stars, interconnecting them into a massive web. The resulting shape was a five-pointed star the same as the one Gideon had worn, the eye in center blinking rapidly.

Taking a shaking breath, Winston reeled the bolts back in. The crackling energy turned blue again, notifying him that he'd regained control, and raced into his arms. His nerves buzzed as they shot through him.

The decision was made to leave. The difficult part would be telling Mabel so.

_ Hoping not to have a long hiatus between chapters! Also review, please! _


	8. Complications

_ Hello! No, I did not die, as far as I am aware, and here is the eighth chapter. I hope to have the next one up by the end of this week, so keep an eye out for it._

_ Quick off-topic: Those. SHORTS. They only got progressively creepier as we went! Like, what, Disney? We had that exploding mailbox, the suicidal alien-dudes, and… fate, I'm not even gonna try and describe the rest. Go YouTube them and be traumatized for yourselves! At least Stan's Tattoo gave me some good ideas…_

_ Wait._

_ -SS_

** Mabel steadied her aim, staring down the orange sight of the plastic Nyarf gun. Her shot needed to be pinpoint accurate. Quite a lot was riding on this one opportunity.**

** Bill Cipher stood at the end of the hall speaking to Gideon, whose image was being projected across the demon's chest like a computer monitor. "Finally!" he exclaimed, looking into the depths of the memory-door in his hand. "It's- ya got a pen there? It's thirteen, forty-four-"**

** Before he could finish reciting the code, Mabel pulled the trigger. The plunger dart soared into the door containing Stan's memory of inputting the code to his safe, knocking it from Bill's hands. The triangle frantically scurried after it with shouts of "No!" Just as Mabel had planned, the memory-door found its intended destination.**

** "... But none more bottomless than the Bottomless Pit, which as you can see here is bottomless," proclaimed Stan, who stood above the fabled pit as the memory-door fell into the cavern of black. Hands on his hips, Stan peered down into the Bottomless Pit. "Whew, whatever that was," he said, "it's gone forever."**

** The Memory-Stan chuckled and the door closed with a mighty slam, the sound echoing through the halls of the mindscape. Bill stood frozen, his single eye wide in shock, and turned to look at Mabel and her companions.**

** "Ha, ha! Boom!" she said, firing a celebratory shot from her toy weapon, then blowing the tip as if it were smoking. Success!**

** "Mabel did it!" exclaimed Xyler and Craz in unison from behind her.**

** "The Shack is safe!" Soos pumped his fist.**

** Gideon recovered from his surprise. "The deal's off!" he told the brain demon. Fury contorted the boy's features.**

** "Wait! No, wait!" Bill protested, waving his hands as if he could calm Gideon, but the fraud psychic only muttered something about switching to Plan B and his projection fuzzed into static. Bill's triangular form shattered like glass, then reformed as he flashed red with rage. He faced Mabel, Soos, and the two 'Dream Boys' he'd conjured.**

** "You!" he shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at them. "You can't even imagine what you've just cost me!" Flames, proper red instead of the blue Mabel had previously seen him wield, manifested in his open hands. "Do you have any idea what I'm like WHEN I'M MAD!?"**

** The pupil of Bill's eye was replaced by an array of symbols that flashed and shone on the faces of his opposition. A ring of flame hissed around them in a circle, and Mabel could feel the wood boards beneath her feet turn to stone as they were raised up into a sky of stars and nebulae. She gasped when she recognized it as the usually comforting dreamscape.**

** Bill grew rapidly in size until he towered above them.**

** "So I guess he gets really mad when he gets mad," Soos shakily remarked.**

** Bolts of lightning shot forth from the demon's hands. **

** "EAT NIGHTMARES!" **

The scene replayed in Mabel's mind as the stars and swirling galaxies of the dreamscape appeared before her the following evening. Remembrance of those events gave the ordinarily pleasant night sky an eerie feel that she didn't find comforting in the least. Mabel fought to keep her posture from slumping, trying to remain upbeat in the face of this adversity.

Although the Pines family had managed to defeat Bill Cipher- though, to be honest, it was more like the demon had let them off with an ominous warning- they had ultimately lost the game in the grand scheme of things. Gideon had taken the deed to the Mystery Shack while they were battling Bill inside Stan's mindscape. According to the "Finders Keepers" law, anyone holding the physical deed to a property immediately owned said property. Whoever created this law must be, in Mabel's opinion, a bit whacked, but all it really meant was that Gideon now possessed the official rights to kick them off the property, which he did.

"It's one of those things like marrying woodpeckers they allow in Gravity Falls," Dipper had explained later at Soos' Abuelita's, pointing to a line of the journal. "Probably something Quentin Trembley came up with." Then Dipper had continued to pore over the journal's cracked pages as if they held the magical key to their current problem.

The Magician waited for her, leaning on his cane in an attempt to appear nonchalant. His thin fingers drummed his thigh with a nervous energy, and the rest of him displayed some kind of urgency that Mabel couldn't identify the cause of.

"Hello, miss Mabel," he greeted.

"Hi, M."

M noticed her expression and frowned. "You alright, Shooting Star?"

"Just had a rough day, that's all." Mabel rubbed her eyes, then let out a yawn. Despite being technically asleep at the time, she still felt exhausted from everything that happened.

"You could tell me about it," he offered.

"Well…"

"Yes?"

"Gideon stole the deed to the Shack today. That, and made a deal with this weird triangle guy."

"Oh?" The Magician's eyes widened, the speed at which he drummed his fingers increasing rapidly. "How did this happen?"

Mabel eyed him with concern, but continued to fill him in on what had transpired in his absence. How Gideon had attempted to steal the deed the first time that evening, how he had summoned Bill to enter Stan's mind and swipe the code to access the deed. How the Pines twins and Soos had to follow the demon and managed to defeat him, sort of.

"How do you mean by 'sort of'?" asked M. The Magician had listened patiently so far, nodding and commenting at all of the appropriate moments. He'd interjected questions here or there for clarification on the _exact_ words of Bill or Gideon, but other than that had been attentive as usual.

"Bill freaked out and stopped everything before we could kick him out of Grunkle Stan's mind. He said this really weird thing about darkness when he left, too," she added. Mabel could recall the circle that had appeared with the demon's departure as well, the one formed by those weird symbols she hadn't quite caught.

"Oh." The Magician frowned. "I suppose-"

He was cut off by a shrieking that rang out across the dreamscape. Both of them clamped their hands over their ears, trying to block it out, then Mabel recognized who it was.

"That's Dipper!" she announced. Her arms in front of her started to flicker.

"But I need to talk with you about something!"

"Later!" she promised.

The Magician nodded, giving a little wave as she was pulled back into reality.


	9. Damage Control (PLEASE READ)

_Hi. Let me start off by saying that I sincerely apologize._

_ That's out of the way? Great._

_ So, I've been doing an immense amount of thinking lately. This story was meant to be one with simple plot somewhere in the region of ten chapters._

_ But "Oh, no!" sayeth the muses. "You need to have two dozen pages of notes! You need to revise EVERYTHING!" It doesn't help that I'm a perfectionist who feels the need to keep all of her ducks in a row either._

_ That being said, I'm going to be starting this darned thing over._

_ "But, Snazzy Scribe," you might say, "you're, like, eight chapters into this monster! You can't quit now!"_

_ Well, I'm not quitting, far from it. I'll probably be working harder on this story than I ever did before, because I'll have a better sense of what I'm doing and where the story will be going. Calm yourself, random hypothetical person._

_ "ARGHHH!"_

_ I'm just gonna walk away…_

_ Anyway, there's no way I'd quit this as invested in it as I've become (i.e. if I'm not focusing on something specific, my thoughts instantly default to this story), but that means I'm not going to be posting for a while. The moment_** I finish the darned thing and I'm satisfied with the results**_, I will most certainly update. The beginning of the story shouldn't change much, buuuuuuuuuut there's going to be a lot of change to the rest._

_ Thank you so much if you've taken the time to get this far. You cannot imagine how many happy little dances I've done when I've gotten a review, especially considering that I thought this was going to reach next to no one. All I can promise is that this story WILL be finished. WILL._

_ Gah, I must sound like I'm dying or leaving the fandom. The real point of this whole thing was to say that I'm going on a hiatus of sorts and while I loathe that I feel the need to, it'll mean that the end product will-hopefully- be a lot better. I didn't want to simply ditch anyone who cared without explanation, so..._

_ Thanks, and see you again when I finish this thing!_

_ ~SS _


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